


through the fog

by plainclothesdisaster



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 05:37:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9867758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plainclothesdisaster/pseuds/plainclothesdisaster
Summary: Short meditations on what happened to Magnus directly before the static in his memories, and what happened directly after. Will probably be demolished by canon shortly, if it hasn’t been already.





	

_Before._

Magnus picks at the memory of the days right after he returned to Raven's Roost like a scab.

He gets back to find his city abandoned. At the broken bridge where the craftsman corridor column once stood he falls to his knees. Through tears he looks to the wreckage far below, gnarled and scattered in the rocks, littered with ash from the firebombs. He doesn’t look for the splintered sign of the Hammer and Tongs. He doesn’t look for his tools shattered and broken in the crevices or his half finished carvings spread across the dirt. He doesn’t look for what else he knows is down there.

A soft voice comes from behind him.

“Magnus?” 

He raises his eyes. A few stragglers with packs on their backs approach him. He doesn’t know the woman nor the two boys behind her by name, but he remembers them coming by the shop more than once. He remembers them coming out for the fight.

“What happened?” he manages to croak out.

“It was Kalen,” she says, “He came back, he-- he bombed the column seven nights ago.”

“And Steven? . . . Julia?”

The straggler shakes her head, blinking away tears.

Magnus swallows hard, something cold coming to rest in him where something warm once lived. “Everyone else?”

“Everyone fled. We couldn't know if Kalen would strike again on the other columns too. Not without, well, without _you_ around.”

Magnus nods, a solemn gesture, and rises to his feet. He turns but she’s already gone. He feels a flash of remorse- he couldn’t help her- but, truly, he was already too late for that.

He cuts the horse loose from his cart and rides away, but not before reaching into the back and taking his chair, his stupid, beautiful chair, and hurling it over the edge.

///

Two towns over and he's at a bar, six beers in, asking about Kalen.

It's only taken him just shy of five days to catch up, following the trail of laid off mercenaries and Raven's Roost refugees scattered through the countryside.

The barkeep points across the room and Magnus turns over his shoulder. There in the corner, at the back of a crowd of ruffians and whores, sits Kalen. Laughing.

He downs the rest of his beer and rises to his feet, gripping the edge of the bar to keep himself from swaying. He'd never been much good at stopping himself from diving recklessly into dangerous situations, and had even less such reserve drunk and on less than two hours of sleep.

“Kalen.” Silence sweeps through the bar as he speaks the name. After all, he’d learned how to make his voice sound commanding. They lock eyes through the crowd.

Kalen smiles, his lips barely a sliver cut across his face. “So you lived after all. Can't say the same for the rest of your rebels.”

The cavalcade of thugs surrounding Kalen turn their attention toward Magnus. He watches as their dirty hands start to make fists and their dirty teeth start to form smiles and it doesn’t take anything more than that.

He punches clumsily, barely able to stay upright by this point. Still, the hit knocks the closest lackey a new one. He bloodies his knuckles as the man's nose erupts beneath them. 

Kalen laughs behind the crowd as a chorus of shouts and jeers explodes through the tavern. Magnus hefts a stool at the next two goons approaching, bowling them back across the floor. He swings a fist to knock the fourth into a table, jabs a foot into the stomach of a fifth. The barkeep comes around and grabs his wrist but Magnus yanks it back and tosses him aside, perhaps with a bit too much force, but he doesn't care. The blood boils in his ears. 

A scrawny guy jumps on his shoulders from behind. Magnus tosses him over the bar without looking. He storms toward Kalen, taking hits and giving them as he puts one foot in front of the other relentlessly, not even seeing the sea of thugs as he plows through them. He sees only the ashes of his home, only Kalen, laughing.

Magnus grabs for Kalen's disgustingly fancy robes when it hits him, a bottle to the face he didn't see coming. He reels back instantly, gripping his eye as a searing pain slices down his cheek. 

First he feels the blood hot on his fingers. Then he feels the men grab him by the arms and drag him out the door. He rolls in the gravel street where the toss him, adding bruises to bruises.

He looks up through one eye to see Kalen, shrouded in golden light spilling from the pub door.

“Go home, Magnus,” he scoffs. “Oh, hmm, I guess you don't have one now, do you?”

The menagerie gathered at the door chuckles. Magnus feels his throat tighten.

“That's it then?” He jabs back, “You're just going to let me go, you coward?”

Kalen looks down his nose with a sneer that hits deeper than any of the punches.

“Oh don't be silly Magnus. I'm still going to kill you. Someday. But not now. That would be much too easy. For you.”

Kalen laughs again, each beat stabs Magnus like nails, and he goes back inside. The door shuts and Magnus is left alone in the dark. 

He clutches his face in his hands, tears and blood a mess down his cheeks, curled up in the dirt, pathetic. He wants to shout but nothing comes out of his mouth, only breathless, silent sobs.

Stupid, stupid. He'd known he was outnumbered and outmatched in there. He'd known going after Kalen was suicide. He'd known and he'd done it anyway. 

He wished Kalen had just finished it. He wished he were dead. He didn't want to kill Kalen, not really. He wanted Raven's Roost back. He wanted Julia back. He wanted this pain to end.

A warm hand on his shoulder catches him mid sob.

“You're hurt, friend, let me help you.” The voice is male, soft, entirely unexpected.

He nods, too beat to look up, too weak to protest.

On his feet again, he stumbles in a drunken daze, guided by unseen hands, into a warm, dark sitting room, lit only by a fire. 

Slumped in a chair, hands offer him a wet cloth and guide him to press it to his face. It comes away bloody.

He closes his eyes. Feels the hands touch his bloodied knuckles, then his bruised sides. The pain begins to fade, the cuts start to close. Magic, he realizes. He was being healed.

The hands move the cloth at his face aside and reach toward his cheek but Magnus turns away.

“No. Leave that one,” he says, Kalen's sneering face still burning in his mind. “That one I need to remember.”

He looks up at the figure for the first time, blinking his one good eye into focus. 

The figure pulls its hand away. Magnus sees a soft smile on his face, despite most of his features being shadowed by the hood of a bright crimson robe.

“Oh, Magnus. You will remember. You will.”

As if overtaken by fog, the room goes blurry, and then completely dark. On the moonbase, Magnus lies in bed, a cold sweat seeping into the sheets, wide awake.

///

_After._

His name was Magnus Burnsides and he was walking toward Neverwinter.

He'd been on this road many times before, he knew that much. Where he'd been going or where he'd been coming from he didn't quite recall.

His name was Magnus Burnsides and he had an axe on his back, motley armor on his chest, a scar on his face. He'd been through fights. loads of them, he was sure. They came back to him slowly. He'd fought bullies at school. He'd punched riffraff at bars. He'd lead a rebellion. He'd loved a girl named Julia.

 _Julia._ He nearly tripped over his feet. The wave of emotions that came with the name felt as raw as they did the day he lost her. That was good. That was something. That, at least, he'd never forget.

He thought maybe if he looked back, over his shoulder he might-- no. No. No, he knew he couldn't. Couldn't look back at whoever, whatever he was walking away from. His stomach twisted at the idea. But he didn't know why.

He felt his hand reach for the bandana around his neck. He looked down. Red.

Something about it felt right. Felt familiar. 

In town he found his way to a tavern. He remembered how to do that much at least. He remembered how to order a beer. He remembered how to drink it. 

He let the fog of the drink mix with the fog in his head. Tried to imagine it made it feel less unpleasant

“Hey. Big guy.”

He looked up. The barkeep was talking to him.

“Y-yeah?” He remembered how to speak. Just barely.

“You look pretty tough. You looking for a job?”

“I guess so. Sure.”

“Good. See, I suspect my rival barkeep across town of scammin’ our suppliers into upcharging me. I'm getting a rough and rowdy lookin’ crowd together to go see what's up. Nothing violent no, just enough to scare him straight.”

Was this... something he would do? Did Magnus Burnsides take questionable jobs from barkeeps with a certain knowing glint in their eye? He looked at the bottom of his cup. It didn't have the answers. He looked back at the barkeep.

“Who've you got so far?”

“Heh. Well, uh, that dwarf over there volunteered.” He pointed a meaty finger at a stubby old dwarf in a booth. He was flirting, very poorly, with the server girl. “Said he knew how to swing that hammer well enough. And uh, that elf.”

He tilted his head toward a slight figure perched on the last bar stool. It looked as if a stiff wind would blow him away, tattered robes and all.

Magnus raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Saw him doing some wizard shit that spooked some townie boys right good. He agreed to put on that little show again after I offered him three gold for the job.”

Ah, money. Did he even have any money? He patted his pockets discreetly, turned out a scant few coppers. “And does that offer stand for me as well?”

“Iffin it need to, it sure can.” He outstretched a hand to shake on it.

Magnus looked at the boys, looked at the barkeep and sighed. He was tired, or at least he thought he was, and could feel the edges of a headache creeping in quick. He couldn’t really remember what he was trying to do, but he knew the last thing thing he wanted was to get mixed up with a ragtag band of wayward folk just asking for trouble.

Still, he had this feeling that wouldn’t fade. Still, though he didn’t quite know why, he clasped the barkeep’s hand firmly, and shook. 

“You've got yourself a deal.”


End file.
